FOOTBALL clubs can seek compensation if young players they trained sign their first professional contract with a team in another EU country, European judges ruled today.

The verdict came in a case involving 29-year-old French star Olivier Bernard, who joined Newcastle United in 1997 at the end of a three-year training contract with French club Olympique Lyonnaise (Lyon).

At the time, the French Professional Football Charter required "joueurs espoir" - promising players aged 16-22 - to sign with the professional club which trained them if offered a contract at the end of their training.

If they chose not to, they were barred for three years from signing with another French club.

But Bernard signed with an English club - and challenged a subsequent French court ruling that he and United were equally liable to compensate Lyon to the tune of more than 53,000 euros (£48,000).

The sum was equivalent to Bernard’s first year's salary if he had taken up the Lyon contract.

The player and United appealed, and the French appeal court asked the European Court of Justice whether requiring a trainee football to pay damages if he signs with a professional club in another EU country breached EU law.

Today, the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg acknowledged that the French rule on trainees was clearly a restriction on the freedom of movement for workers, including footballers.

However, the restrictions could be justified under certain circumstances, such as the need to encourage recruitment and training of young professional players.

"In view of the considerable social importance of sporting activities, and in particular football in the EU, the objective of encouraging the recruitment and training of young players must be accepted as legitimate."

The judgment went on: "In the court’s view, the prospect of receiving training fees is likely to encourage football clubs to seek new talent and train young players.

"A scheme providing for the payment of compensation for training where a young player, at the end of his training, signs a professional contract with a club other than the one which trained him can, in principle, be justified by the objective of encouraging the recruitment and training of young players."

The judges said the French scheme which triggered the case was based on payments not for costs incurred in training that player but in relation to the total loss suffered by the club - a scheme which went beyond what was necessary to encourage and fund recruitment and training of young players.

The judges said: "The amount of that compensation is to be determined by taking account of the costs borne by the clubs in training both future professional players and those who will never play professionally."

As a result of the case, Fifa, footballs’s international governing body, has adopted rules under which the club, and not the player, pays compensation.

The amount is calculated on the cost of training a player, adjusted by the ratio of trainees needed to produce one professional player.

Various conditions ensure that compensation is "proportionate", and distributed equally when several clubs have contributed to training a player.

The man who sparked it all, Bernard, stayed with Newcastle until 2005, when he left after a dispute over contract negotiations.

He rejoined a year later, in the middle of a two-year contract with Rangers.

But, beset by injuries and fitness problems, he left again in May 2007. Today he trains with Toronto FC.